Townsville Bulletin

While we wring hands about the unimportan­t Ukraine burns

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GREAT leaders make tough decisions, not on the back of opinion polls, a vague and out-of-date retrospect­ive, baring an often wildly-inaccurate compass of popularity, but on the bravery to assess the future, accept its difficulti­es and manage the consequenc­es.

As we see the carnage in

Ukrainian cities, now, more than any other time in recent history, requires leaders to drop weak-kneed cronies quivering at the polls.

Australia has been at war with itself for the past decade, indulging in cancel culture and Covid-overreach, screaming about 2050 emission targets. Now the social justice warrior is flooding Vladimir Putin’s

Instagram with “Vladdy Daddy pls no ww3”. Opinions change. Facts don’t. Leaders deal with facts, not the fashionabl­e pile-on of the day.

The “room” cares more about our national security and sovereignt­y than the infantile Gen Z/millennial response, which bafflingly believe Putin reads his Instagram comments.

There is an incomprehe­nsible disconnect between what is happening in the world and the childlike response online, which we have been indulging in for years.

Undemocrat­ic, totalitari­an government­s are not fading; our form of democracy is, as it eats itself bickering over the acceptable amounts of methane and carbon dioxide or annihilati­ng each other on which women deserve to be victims and which women deserve to be stalked and hounded out of public life. Putin did not provide an emissions target for his invasion of Ukraine. No invading soldier was refused entry because they weren’t triple vaxxed or didn’t wear masks. None needed a QR code before they started bombing civilian hospitals.

Putin and others of his ilk would hold disdain for indolent fascinatio­ns of fading western empires, his own Instagram providing Russia with a window on vacuous social justice warrior dominating our discourse.

The same SJW’S are suddenly saying they won’t be drafted – are you honestly saying if your nation is at threat, you won’t protect it, you who so bravely tweets? Is it only right that others do that job for you?

Countries that invade democracie­s and say to hell with free speech and freedom are the real problems that our leaders have to address. Two years ago, the United Nations president Antonio Guterres pleaded for net-zero: “We are digging our graves.”

How many Russian tanks did that stop? Now he pleads with Putin. Maybe that’s an issue you should have dealt with when distracted.

The people who can and do cause us harm with harsh trade sanctions, icy diplomacy, cyber-attacks and IP theft don’t care about our green credential­s locking out access to resources or our premier’s reality TV lockdowns. Ask the cronies, fluffing their feathers like rustled chooks, what do the polls say tonight about what is the challenge of our time?

Churchill did not follow the populist approach of pleasing Hitler, which the polls would have supported. As any tradie knows, you have to make the house storm-proof.

But if Australia was a house, we don’t even own all the doors. China and its subsidiari­es own ports and ships and have welcome mats on our closest islands. Meanwhile, our alternate prime minister required 24 hours this week to decide whether meth should be legal – a proposal cooked up by one of his enlightene­d city Labor MP’S.

As Senator Jim Molan, who defended this nation for 40 years and who should be in our defence ministry with Peter Dutton, writes in Australia Tomorrow: “The 1930s alternativ­e, that is, ignoring the problem and adopting a strategy of hope is immeasurab­ly worse and irresponsi­ble, and planning costs little.” We have our freedom because past leaders made tough decisions that people knew they had to follow, now the Parliament is immersed in irrelevant culture wars and missing the one where people get massacred.

Once on green leather in the

House of Representa­tives, the pretence of leadership MP’S carry on television, evaporates to nasty jibes, name calling, otherwise uninspired theatrics for some sad little clicks on social media, in the clamour for votes from those who have no memory of war and believe sending DMS to Putin will stop the invasion of Ukraine. It is a rare showdown in Parliament that is not ranting about the failings of the other side or overripe motherhood statements about their own. Vision is a rare gem in the cannibalis­tic mire of green leather.

We need to stop wasting our focus eating ourselves over trivial distractio­ns and create a sovereign state with control over our seaports and power supply, stronger and bigger rail and road networks, infrastruc­ture to build our resilience.

Aggressors in tanks and artillery are murdering people because a singular person chose to – a person who chillingly alluded to nuclear attack for whoever comes to Ukraine’s defence.

Pollsters don’t understand the reality lag. While you are worried about renaming Australia Day “Invasion Day,” benevolent feminism, and what cheese has an inappropri­ate name, totalitari­ans were arming themselves to the teeth and preparing to invade.

Ukraine is not the end, it’s an example of the future, whether Instagram approves of it or not, and the polling has zero effect on Putin.

 ?? ?? A family flees to Romania, having crossed from Ukraine following Russia’s large-scale attack on the country. Picture: Andreea Campeanu/getty Images
A family flees to Romania, having crossed from Ukraine following Russia’s large-scale attack on the country. Picture: Andreea Campeanu/getty Images

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